


though she be but little

by loonyloopyluna



Category: Miraculous Ladybug
Genre: Banter, Mari can kick my ass any day of the week tbh
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-21
Updated: 2016-12-21
Packaged: 2018-09-10 17:46:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,275
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8926441
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/loonyloopyluna/pseuds/loonyloopyluna
Summary: The problem with being a jokester is that it's hard to tell when you're being serious. But Chat Noir really does admire Marinette.





	

Marinette’s day was ruined before she even woke up. Or, more specifically, it was ruined just as she woke up.

There’s nothing like a pair of steel-toed boots to the abdomen to shock you out of even the most pleasant dream.

Marinette’s eyes snapped open, and as she struggled for breath, something–-someone-–scrambled gracelessly towards the foot of her bed. The trapdoor to her balcony was open above her, and a square of bright light shone directly into her eyes. She thought she might have heard sounds of battle coming from outside, but through her wheezing it was hard to tell.

She sat up and squinted towards the figure a few feet away. “Ch-chat Noir?” she coughed. “What… the… hell?”

He inched forward, hands pressed tightly against his mouth in horror. “I’m so sorry! Oh my god, I didn’t think you’d be sleeping right now, and I needed a place to duck down for a minute, and I didn’t have time to get over to the school, and…”

Marinette shook her head, too busy coughing to say anything, and held up a finger. When she had recovered enough to speak, she said, “Why would you think I wasn’t asleep? It’s–” she scrounged around her blankets until she found her phone “–nine o’clock on a Saturday morning!”

Chat scratched uncertainly at the back of his neck. “Yeah, I kind of forgot about that; I mean, I’ve been up for a few hours for work and I honestly thought it was, like, afternoon by this point, but, I mean, obviously not because– Oh my god, I forgot, are you okay?” He leaned forward, but caught himself quickly, hovering frozen in place, one hand outstretched but drifting slowly back down to his side.

“Yeah, no, I’m fine,” she said, before another cough forced its way out of her chest. Chat had a job? No, she couldn’t focus on that. She continued to pat through her blankets–she’d found her phone, but Tikki was still nowhere to be seen. Marinette dreaded to think that she’d been laying in her usual spot when Chat landed. “I guess you could say I’m used to it.”

“Do people regularly almost kill you?” Chat asked skeptically, but he relaxed and sat down on the edge of her bed, crossing one leg over the other.

“You’d be surprised,” she said, surreptitiously checking the sole of his shoe for a pink smear.

A bright blue bolt of energy shattered one of the pots on Marinette’s balcony and Chat leapt back up. “Right. I should get back to that. Sorry about–you know.” He leaned over her and swung himself up through the trapdoor and out of sight.

Tikki peered out from behind Marinette’s cat pillow. “We should probably go help him out, huh?”

* * *

From then on, that became somewhat of an inside joke between the two of them. Whenever Chat saw Marinette, he’d make some joke about it.

“Hello, princess. Have any near-death experiences lately?”

“Be careful! There’s an akuma nearby! Actually, I’m sure you could take her.”

“I was watching the news the other day and I saw something about ninjas and I thought, you know, I bet Marinette was there.”

“Good evening! Lovely night for a nice, relaxing fistfight, don’t you think?”

One day, Chat raced into her parents’ bakery, panting heavily and dripping with sweat. Marinette wrinkled her nose and stepped out from behind the register to stop him from getting too close to the food. “What’s wrong, Chat?”

“I was out with my friends and I saw something suspicious come this way. I’m not sure, but I smell Hawk Moth, and you know what they say about a cat’s instincts,” he said, winking and tapping his nose with a finger.

“No, what do they say?” Marinette asked.

“You know, that they’re… really good.” Chat coughed uncomfortably. “Anyway, can I assume you’ve already caught him and he’s tied up in a back room somewhere?”

She crossed her arms. “You know, that’s not nearly as funny as you think it is.”

“What isn’t?”

She waved her arm vaguely. “Your whole… condescending joke thing. As hard as it may be to believe, I actually can take care of myself.”

“I know,” he said.

“I know I’m small, so it might be hard to believe, but I can hold my own.”

“I know.”

“And I don’t appreciate you making fun–-Oh.”

“I know you’re tough, Marinette. I’m not trying to make fun of you.” Chat’s cat ears flattened against his hair. “Sorry. I thought it was like, a thing we had, like a friend thing. You remind me a lot of someone I know, and I really admire how resilient you both are. I didn’t realize--if you don’t like it, I’ll stop.”

Marinette blinked. “No, it’s fine, I just…” I’m not used to being taken seriously as Marinette, she thought. “I really didn’t think you were being serious. Um.”

Outside, a car alarm went off. “That’s my cue,” Chat said, grinning at her as he skipped backwards out of the shop. “See you later, sunshine. Give me a call the next time you’re in a fight, and I see if I can swing by to help the other guy out.”

Marinette rolled her eyes as the door swung shut behind him and came up to the window to see if she would need to join him. The car whose alarm was blaring looked to be Adrien’s chauffeur’s car, and she wondered where his driver was, until she saw him running towards it from a block away, clutching a comically small coffee cup in his gigantic fist.

A pair of teenagers had smashed through the driver’s side window and were fumbling with the buttons on the inside of the door to unlock the car. Chat, meanwhile, was creeping along the other side of the car, baton raised, his thumb hovering over the button to extend it. When they managed to get the door unlocked and swung it open, Chat rounded the corner of the car and poked his staff through the empty window frame, knocking the wind out of the one’s stomach. The other teenager, while smaller, still wielded the crowbar they’d used to smash through the window, and attempted to use it as an improvised sword against Chat’s weapon. He smirked and batted the crowbar away with a flick of his baton, then brought it down across the car thief’s ankles. Adrien’s chauffeur reached his car just in time to see Chat gesturing at the two prone figures, who both grinned sheepishly up at them.

Marinette headed back to the counter. She didn’t often get to see Chat work on his own, and she sometimes regretted that. When she was around, he always looked to her for strategies, but when he went hand-to-hand with someone, his instincts took over. He probably did some kind of martial arts as a civilian. At some point she meant to ask him for tips on close-range combat.

She pulled out her phone to text Alya-–even if her services as Ladybug were unnecessary, she knew Alya would still want to know about any scuffle that involved either of the heroes. The bell over the door rang, and she hastily typed out a quick message before stuffing her phone back into her pocket.

“Good morning!” she said cheerfully, looking up. Chat approached the counter. “Oh, Chat Noir. I see the assassins failed again.”

A smile slowly spread across his face, which quickly blossomed into a full-out laugh.

“What?” Marinette asked. He leaned against the counter for support and shook his head, too consumed with laughter to respond. “What?”

**Author's Note:**

> I originally wrote this for a tumblr prompt; link [here](http://chatchevalier.tumblr.com/post/151992520511/marichat-21)!


End file.
